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Kalyan to float a new party

Lucknow: Former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Kalyan Singh will declare the formation of a new party on January 5, his birthday, the leader said.

Disclosing this during an informal chat with media persons, he said: “I have finally made up my mind to form my own party. The details are being worked out and we will soon submit all the necessary documents for registration of the party with the Election Commission.”

Kalyan Singh is a Bharatiya Janata Party turncoat, who has switched sides at least twice over the past decade.

Certain observations made by the new BJP president Nitin Gadkari initially indicated that the new leadership of the party would create room for estranged leaders. However, no sooner than Gadkari assumed formal control of the top position, things seemed to change.

What was held out against Kalyan Singh were his extremely rude references to the party veterans and his close affiliation with the BJP’s sworn adversary Mulayam Singh. On both the past occasions when he walked out of the party, Kalyan Singh chose to shake hands with Mulayam Singh.

In 1999, when he broke away from the BJP for the first time, Kalyan Singh floated the Rashtriya Kranti Party. For some time, he worked in tandem with Mulayam Singh’s Samajwadi Party. But he returned to the BJP fold just before the 2004 Lok Sabha elections. Contrary to his tall claims, he failed to make any difference to BJP’s political destiny.

Again in January 2009, he marched out of the BJP and went the whole hog to push the Samajwadi Party.

Even as he did not formally join the party, he got his son Rajvir Singh inducted into the same, while he decided to campaign hand-in-hand with Mulayam Singh.--IANS